Optical fault injection attacks in smart card chips and an evaluation of countermeasures against them

This document is a study of optical fault injection attacks and countermeasures against them, with particular emphasis on an evaluation of the different methods and structures used as countermeasures.
It is examined why this topic is significant and important for computer security, especially from the perspective of a relevant business firm. A comprehensive and detailed introduction to optical fault injection attacks against smart card chips and the countermeasures employed against such attacks follows, including a review of the current solution of using light sensors as countermeasures and its potential shortcomings.
We continue by identifying and investigating other potential alternative countermeasures against optical fault induction attacks and make a full evaluation and comparison of them, regarding the balance between the different costs required for their implementation and the level of protection they would offer. Additionally, we also relate the results of this comparison to the results that the current solution provides.
We then go on to discuss what future work we have identified that may be needed regarding this field. Different innovative approaches are discussed and the thesis concludes with some additional remarks regarding these proposals and some final conclusions drawn from the comparison between currently used and alternative countermeasures.